


What's a little rebellion and fun

by RahDamon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Pranks, drinking adventure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 10:07:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16303133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RahDamon/pseuds/RahDamon
Summary: Umbridge pushes too far with one of her Decrees and Hermione decides to fight back by using loopholes. This ends in a night of fun for the Golden Trio and an amusing morning.





	What's a little rebellion and fun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bookmonkey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookmonkey/gifts).



“Merlin, no,” Ron groaned, his voice dripping dismay like blubber pus and hitting a new pitch.

 

Harry clenched his eyes tighter, back of his hands itching. On one hand, he really didn’t want to know whatever made Ron’s voice reach new heights. On the other, though, blinding himself to happening events never worked anyway. Also it would be mighty hypocritical of him to refuse knowledge now when it had been what he had wanted all summer long.

 

With a sigh, he cracked one eye open and stared at the list of idiotic and tyrannical laws dressed up as Educational Decrees. Somehow, despite the wall having been completely covered the previous evening, there seemed to be even __more__  Decrees.

 

“How are there even more stupid rules?”

 

“Not those,” Ron answered before pointing forward. “ _ _Her__.”

 

For one second Harry thought Ron meant Umbridge. But when his eyes swung to where Ron was pointing he realized that Ron had meant Hermione. Another second and Harry realized why Ron was that upset.

 

Hermione was staring at a set of new Decrees, motionless, her mouth slightly open and eyes narrow. If you were to look closer, though, you’d see the holes of her nose flaring and the nails of her fingers digging into the balls of her hand. A tremor went through her body periodically and resulted in shuddering breaths being exhaled.

 

To make a long story short, these were all signs that she was extremely upset __and__  indignant __and__  furious. And also on the verge of doing something characteristically unHermione-ish. Like punching Malfoy in the face or cursing a teacher into unconsciousness or starting a clothing rebellion. Well, on second thought, maybe that wasn’t as unHermione-ish as Harry believed at first.

 

He just hoped she wouldn’t rope into teaching another class when she was more than qualified to do it at first. Letting out another sigh, Harry bumped Ron’s shoulder, murmured a soft “Come on” and walked over to Hermione, Ron following with a whimper.

 

(They had learned to be cautious of their friend when she was in that kind of mood.)

 

As soon as they reached Hermione, she shook herself out of her stupor and turned to them, teeth bared and eyes flashing.

 

“She banned it.”

 

“Hermione?”

 

“She banned everything. Oh, she can’t do that, she just can’t. That’s... it’s interfering with our basic rights!”

 

Instead of trying to make sense of Hermione’s fuming, Harry read the piece of paper in front of her.

 

 _ _‘Educational Decree No. 70’__ -Harry wondered about the numbering system as some of these decrees declared themselves to be Number 77 and the next one would be Number 27- _ _’All students are prohibited from eating anything but what is offered on the house tables and only to meal times. The possession of Butterbeer, Chocolate Frogs, candy or other beverages at any time will be severely punished.’__

 

That ... wasn’t a bad one, actually. At least not in comparison to what Harry had imagined by Hermione’s reaction.

 

Ron was in agreement with Hermione for once. “She ... she can’t do that, right?”

 

“Apparently she just did, though I don’t get it.”

 

“She,” Hermione hissed, looking remarkable like Crookshanks on a bad day, therefore every day, “is preventing friends from getting each other inexpensive gifts or relaxing in the evening over a round of frog poker. If her intention were to prevent people from getting drugged or anything, that’d be another thing. But potions aren’t listed here. Also, we’re only allowed to eat at meal times. Which are impossible to attend for the higher grades who have independent projects. Which, again, mean that they have to go hungry.”

 

Wincing, Harry took a step back. Well, explained like that...

 

“But, hmm,” Hermione hummed tilting her head before she grinned. “Harry, can I borrow your Cloak?”

 

“Sure.” Harry didn’t know what had occurred to her right now but it would be glorious if her grin had anything to say about it.

 

 

 

Two days later Harry and Ron were sitting in too comfortable armchairs, the fire sizzling metres away from them while staring down on the chessboard. Harry’s figures had already given up on life, sluggishly moving whenever Harry ordered them to.

 

Ron sipped on his butterbeer, snorting when Harry chose to move a pawn. “Mate, that was ...” Shaking his head Ron used a Knight to both take that pawn and declare a Checkmate. “Why are we waiting around in the Roar, anyway?”

 

Roar was the name Hermione had decided on for the Room of Requirement after trying to get them to enunciate all the letters in RoR. That way she had at least a little say in how the name was pronounced unlike with SPEW, she had remarked before rolling her eyes as they laughed.

 

The reason Harry and Ron were there was that Hermione had asked them to wait for her. However, either she had forgotten to give them a time or ...well, Harry couldn’t think of another explanation. It was an hour till curfew slammed down onto the castle now, though, and Harry couldn’t imagine Hermione wanting to risk getting a detention despite being a Prefect. With Umbridge in charge, that badge guaranteed no protection.

 

“Don’t know. Where is she even?”

 

Just as Harry finished speaking, the door opened and through came a crate. Well, Hermione followed as she was the one levitating the crate but they had to process that for a minute first. While they were doing that, she closed the door, wished a table and a number of various glasses in existence and pulled out bottles from the crate.

 

Harry blinked. “Where did you get lemonade and cherry soda and coke? I don’t think you could get that in Hogsmeade.”

 

“Forget all that stuff! How did you get your hands on Udine’s Brew? Or Bakesake? Dear Merlin, is that a bottle of Jack’s Rum?” Ron’s voice grew breathier and higher the more he talked. At the end of his questions, he was near salivating.

 

“Color me astonished, Ron. I didn’t know you knew your alcoholic beverages,” Hermione said drly and Ron spluttered. “And Harry, that’s why this evening is only happening now. Had to ask my parents to get me those three bottles.”

 

“Oh. That’s why Hedwig was so exhausted.”

 

Hermione smiled, her head pulled back a little but shoulders strong.

 

“Seriously, though, how did you get your hand on Bakesake? You need to be above 25 and have to get a certificate that you’re a trained healer to get that,” Ron cut in and fiddled with his wand as he looked over the various bottles sitting on the table. Lemonade, cherry soda, coke-though he had absolutely no idea what they were-and water for the non-alcoholic drinks. Udine’s Brew, Bakesake, Jack’s Rum, and the more common Firewhiskey as far as alcoholic drinks went. “Also, do you want us to die? There are easier ways.”

 

She rolled her eyes before shaking her head. “First, I didn’t know that. Then we better skip that one. Second, Umbridge confiscated those and I stumbled on her cupboard that oh so happened to be unlocked.”

 

Harry smothered a laugh and Ron snorted. ‘Happened to be unlocked’? Yeah, right. It had been unlocked by their friend - or Umbridge could have been sneaking the stuff herself.

 

“And third, we’re not going to die. We’re going to get drunk.”

 

“That from our rule-abiding friend. Ron, I believe we have finally corrupted her to the core.”

 

“Uh-huh,” Ron answered, hands stretching out to grab the Jack’s Rum but Hermione slapped his hands. Yelping, he reared back and looked at her, betrayal in the wrinkles of his mouth.

 

“Don’t be such a baby. We’re not doing this to be teenagers. We’re going to do this in an effort to rebel against Umbridge’s tyranny and to show her that she can’t do that.”

 

“By being teenagers,” Harry drawled, amused at her mulish glare. “Wouldn’t she just shout ‘Detention’ at us? I, for one, have enough of bloody lines in my hand.” Almost unconsciously his fingers stroked over the lightly inflamed and raised skin of what promised to be his most hideous scar, even more hideous than his lighting bolt.

 

A gleeful expression overtook Hermione’s face, lips rolled into a smug grin. “Well, she should have worded her decree better. Eating anything but what come from the house tables is forbidden but she never wrote anything about drinking. And only the possession of alcohol is prohibited, not actually drinking.”

 

Hermione giggled when her friends broke out in laughter, laughing until hiccups of mirth caused their laughter to taper off.

 

“I also told the twins this.”

 

“Oh my God, Hermione,” breathed Harry. “You know what they will do.”

 

Ron just whispered a simple “You’re my hero.” before instructing them on how best to drink Bakesake - you had to gently heat it up.

 

At Hermione’s raised eyebrow he shrugged grinning. “You think just because it’s forbidden none of my brother’s told me how to drink it?”

 

 

Despite having boasted about his brothers and their secret drinking parties, Ron fell asleep after having drunk a cup of Bakesake. Which left the rest to Harry and Hermione. However, after they had also drunk their cup of Bakesake, Harry had hidden everything but the Jack’s Rum and the cherry soda as well as the Firewhiskey.

 

Those were gone as well by now. And Harry and Hermione were plotting. It didn’t remain mere plotting as they slipped out of the Roar and prepared everything, laughing and giggling and falling over each other.

 

They spent three hours preparing everything before they stumbled back into the Room of Requirement and laid down next to Ron. They both fell asleep before their heads met the pillows the Room had conjured as soon as they had started to fall.

 

 

“Morning, everyone!” Ron chirped, almost cackling as Hermione groaned and curled up with her back to him. To Ron’s disappointment, Harry shifted and blinked awake, yawning but clearly not in the same pain as Hermione.

 

“Morning, Ron, where’s the fire?”

 

For a second Ron was confused before he shrugged it off as a Muggle phrase since fire had never been a problem. Thanks to the twins, his mother had various types of water and smothering spells memorized. She also didn’t lack any practice.

 

“It’s almost Sunday noon. We missed breakfast and I’m hungry.”

 

“Food?” Hermione whispered, cracking one eye open and wincing. “No, I’m quite fine.”

 

“Toast? A little bit?” Harry said, already getting up and stretching. His joints cracked as he rolled the shoulders but they felt weirdly used.

 

“What Harry said. C’mon, Hermione.”

 

Minutes later Hermione shuffled after them, her eyes closed and more than once hitting the wall or one of the walking armors before Ron wrapped his hand around her wrist to guide her. Harry skipped ahead to them, only to slow to a stop when they reached the entrance hall.

 

“Blimey,” Ron breathed. “Did the twins get loose and did more home than a Puffskin on burnt sugar?”

 

The entrance hall looked like the abandoned battlefield of a paint war. No single spot was the color it had been the evening before. You couldn’t take two steps before stepping on another neon color. The walls had been left innocent either, patterns of neon colors crossing over each other, creating several crustily flaking layers of paint.

 

“No,” Hermione laughed lowly before whining. “No laughing, hurts my head.”

 

“Wonder who had the gall to do that. Look at the decrees.”

 

Each and everyone of the decrees had been painted in a headache-inducing hot pink. There were also rules written in gas yellow. Ron squinted and puzzled out one in a few minutes as his brain deciphered yellow on pink.

 

__‘Education Decree #don’t care. Slackers aren’t tolerated in this Ministry-abused institution. Therefore anyone who starts with an U and ends with an mbridtch has to be solely responsible for cleaning all animals and their droppings.’_ _

 

Which set Ron off into a laughing fit. Which, in turn, drew the teacher’s attention to the trio. The trio hadn’t even noticed the teachers were there.

 

“So you find this funny, do you?” Umbridge smiled, lips crinkling into the caricature of a smile. “You wouldn’t happen to have something to do with this, do you?”

 

On reflex, Harry stepped forward and answered. “Nope, we didn’t, Professors. But this is brilliant, you got to admit!”

 

Most of the teacher’s pressed their lips together behind Umbridge. Harry noticed that they also were trying not to laugh. Even Snape’s lips were moving into a small but approving smile. Would wonders never end to cease?

 

Umbridge, however, wasn’t pleased and stared hard at Harry before her eyes wandered over to Hermione and gained a triumphant gleam.

 

“Well, I guess, detention for a week then.”

 

“What proof do you have we did that?”

 

She smiled at them, like the colorful toad she was as she shook her head. “Oh no, not for this. For a clear violation of Educational Decree #70.”

 

Hermione hissed. “We don’t have any alcohol on us, so there’s no violation?”

 

“Is that so, Mrs. Granger? You do know that having alcohol in you also counts as being in possession of alcohol?”

 

All of a sudden Hermione turned white, along with Harry. They hadn’t been prepared for that argument.

 

“And, as it happens, there’s a nifty spell for checking if you have ingested some. So please don’t move for a moment, dears.” A vicious grin brightened Umbridge’s face, her arm almost vibrating out of its socked as she swished her wand and waved it over the trio.

 

When the sparks her wand emitted were green, that grin froze and Umbridge gaped. “How can that be!?”

 

“Well, I do know that spell as well. Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Mrs. Granger, off with you. And Mrs. Granger, if you’re getting sick, please go to the Hospital Wing before you collapse,” McGonagall said, nodding her head and tipping her hat to them both.

 

Wasting no time the trio scuffled through the hall and almost sprinted to their seats on the Gryffindor table.

 

“I can’t believe...no,” Hermione sighed, “ I actually can believe that she’s too incompetent to perform that spell correctly. The alcohol checker-spell. I should have remembered that.”

 

“Nice of McGonagall to give you a ready-made excuse of why you’re so grumpy today,” Harry chuckled and started to fill both his and Hermione’s food with light food.

 

“I didn’t.”

 

Harry and Hermione turned to Ron who shrugged.

 

“Charlie showed me a spell that hides the alcohol levels in your blood from the most common alcohol checkers. Madam Pomfrey could have still found out, though. But Umbridge’s no healer.”

 

“When did you put it on us?”

 

“Eh, yesterday. It lasts for a full day.”

 

Ron grinned when Harry slapped him on the back and Hermione smiled directly at him. His ears burned red when they kept giving him compliments until he wondered. “What I want to know is how Harry lied to Umbridge. And how even Snape bought it? Have ya seen the surprised look on that git’s face?”

 

“I actually want to know that, too,” Hermione confessed, moaning when Harry pushed her designated plate in front of her. “As we are the culprits.”

 

“I didn’t lie,” Harry answered. “I don’t remember anything.”

 

“And...you... Harry, why aren’t you hungover?”

 

“Don’t know. I feel great, actually.”

 

Hermione’s head thumped onto the table, clattering or throwing of every piece of cutlery near her. “Some people have all the luck,” she grumbled before heaving her head back up.

 

Harry smiled. “Let’s do this again. It was fun.”


End file.
